Grade 4 Camp, VPA Award and Singing Gold

I hope you all enjoyed the beautiful spring weather yesterday and watched an inspiring young lady jockey the winning horse in the Melbourne Cup. Michelle Payne, 30 years of age, set her target high by wanting to win this famous race. What an achievement! The Herald Sun reported her as, ‘… one impressive, humble, down-to-earth woman; one whose goal is clearly to inspire…’ The Age wrote, “And I dreamt about it from when I was five years old and there is an interview from my school friends, they were teasing me about, when I was about seven, and I said, “I’m going to win the Melbourne Cup” and they always give me a bit of grief about it and I can’t believe we’ve done it.” (emphasis added).

All of the 875 children currently at Hillsmeade PS could be the headline in the papers in the future. As parents and educators, let’s encourage them to set their learning goals high, support them to persevere and challenge them to do their very best.

Grade 4 Camp

Grade 4 kids Going on Camp

Maldon, here come the Grade 4 children on camp! Two buses were loaded this morning with 100 boys and girls off for three days. We hope they have fantastic time and I’m excited to be catching up with them tomorrow evening.

VPA Award for Hillsmeade

VPA Award

On Monday and Tuesday last week, I attended the Victorian Principals Association’ s Conference in Melbourne. The conference, ‘Leaders – Believing in Self’ provided opportunities for us to reflect on how we, as leaders in our schools, work in relationships which impact both our professional and personal lives. We looked at our own behaviour through a profiling tool affording us the chance to consider how to change our behaviour when circumstances necessitated change Resilience, reducing stress, increasing productivity and identifying our own potential also featured through excellent presenters of the various workshops. As a State Councillor on the VPA, I value the professional association’s support for the challenging and changing role of principals in schools. Our Assistant Principals and Leading Teachers are also members of the VPA. At the dinner on Monday night, I was fortunate enough to have received a Study Award of $5,000 to build the capacity of our leadership team (including the PLT leaders). I received the award from Gill Callister (Secretary, DET), Gabrielle Leigh (President, VPA) and Mr Brooks (PSW Sponsor).

Music Count Us In 2015

Children Singing ‘Gold’

Last Thursday @12.30pm Hillsmeade Primary School joined more than 2,100 schools across Australia to participate in Music Count Us In 2015. Music Count Us is Australia’s biggest school initiative and celebrates the importance of Music education in schools, with more than 500,000 participating students singing one song simultaneously. This year’s song ‘Gold’ was written by four talented students ranging in age from 11-16 years old. The students will also perform this song at our assembly on Friday if you would like to come and watch.’

Every Face has a Place

Every Face has a Place – A mural project will commence this term celebrating the many cultures we have at Hillsmeade Primary School. We would like to thank Bunnings Cranbourne in supporting us in this project by sponsoring the paints required to make this mural project a success!

Enjoy the rest of the week.Deborah

Related

Deborah was the Principal at Hillsmeade from 2013 to 2016, after four years as the Principal of two schools in Castlemaine. She holds a Master of School Leadership from Melbourne University, a Graduate Diploma of Secondary Teaching and a Bachelor of Business Honours.

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Popular Questions

Book Packs (3)

No. We support cash, cheque and cards at the school office. Eligible parents can use CentrePay — forms available at the office.

We normally try and use Qkr for all payments, however we need parents to pick up book packs. We have found that with Qkr available for Essential Items parents will pay at home on their phone and then forget to pick up book packs.
Additionally, there is a delay between a Qkr payment and when the school receives the notification of payment, and it can be difficult to determine whether a parent has already paid by Qkr when they’re standing at the counter.

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No, we purchase nearly 900 book packs in bulk and get significant savings as a result. The Essential Items fee covers both the book pack and a collection of other resources that are used directly in the classrooms. If you purchase your own book pack stationery you will still need to pay some of the Essential Items fee to cover the remaining items used in classrooms.

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Cash, cheque and cards at the school office. Eligible parents can use CentrePay — forms available at the office.

We normally try and use Qkr for all payments, however we need parents to pick up book packs. We have found that with Qkr available for Essential Items parents will pay at home on their phone and then forget to pick up book packs.
Additionally, there is a delay between a Qkr payment and when the school receives the notification of payment, and it can be difficult to determine whether a parent has already paid by Qkr when they’re standing at the counter.

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Fees (3)

The government funds the vast majority of running the school, but DET policy provides for schools charging for some Essential classroom items. DET provides this diagram to explain the difference between government funding, Essential Items, and Voluntary Charges: Understanding Parent Payment Categories.

Essential Items are the parent contribution for essential learning items and other curriculum resources. You will need to pay these fees to receive your child’s book pack.

Voluntary Charges are non-compulsory, and are used to improve the school for all children, such as playground equipment, library books, etc.

Related

No. We support cash, cheque and cards at the school office. Eligible parents can use CentrePay — forms available at the office.

We normally try and use Qkr for all payments, however we need parents to pick up book packs. We have found that with Qkr available for Essential Items parents will pay at home on their phone and then forget to pick up book packs.
Additionally, there is a delay between a Qkr payment and when the school receives the notification of payment, and it can be difficult to determine whether a parent has already paid by Qkr when they’re standing at the counter.